The Story of My First Time (at an MLG)

Hello there! My name is Jeff Bigg, but for those of you familiar with
the Day9tv chat room, I am better known as littlebig11. Since I
subscribe to Day9, and get so much out of his shows and stories, I
figured that I would share a story of my own with you. So I encourage you to sit down,
relax, and let me tell you the story of my experience at MLG Dallas
2013. The idea to go to an MLG came to me right after the
Battle.net World Championships. I saw how awesome everything there
looked and wondered, "Why can't I go to something like that?" I had
never been to any tournament like that ever in my life, and so the
prospect was extremely exciting. So, when the announcement came for the
Dallas tournament, I knew that I just had to go. I managed to find
another person from my university's CSL team that wanted to go, and
suddenly, we were both on a path that would lead to the best weekend of
our lives.Time lapse for a couple weeks, and finally the day had
arrived. Everything had been planned, packed, and prepared. Anuroop
(the guy I went with, he also went by NZ) and I were ready to start our
adventure onto MLG. However, the fun couldn't start right away as we had
to get from Champaign, Illinois to Dallas, Texas. I had arranged for my
dear wonderful brother Paul to pick us up, and then take us to St.
Louis where we would then travel by train onto Dallas. What followed
were the 21 most boring hours of my life. The worst part was being on
the train, where I would have liked to sleep, but found no respite, and
only managed to snag one hour.

We were totally ready to go

When we
arrived in Dallas, we knew from the moment that we set foot on the
ground that this is when the fun would start! After checking in to our
hotel room (within 5 minutes walking distance of the MLG) we set out to
do what all gamer would do in 72 degree weather - go inside and play
video games all day! Arriving at the convention center early, we took a
moment to take everything in.

Everyone universally looked
excited. People from every game were mingling together, and all having a
great time. There was a very high concentration of teams in jerseys,
and some very nice people passing out Dr. Pepper. I fell in love with it
all immediately. Finally, the doors opened.

Just minutes before the doors opened

Walking
into the venue for the first time was very overwhelming, so let me
break down what I saw into smaller sections. To my left, there was the
Dr Pepper station, where people could play games and get free Dr Pepper.
Next to that was the Flipz station, filled only with sexy women and
chocolate covered pretzels, and also the Full Sail University station,
where you could test our software, charge your phone, or play some of
the video games some of the students had created. To my right, there was
the MLG store, the Planetside 2 exhibition, Gaming Jerseys, Mad Catz,
Benq, Turtle Beach audio, and iBuyPower, all of which showed off
brilliant products. And, sitting right in front of me, there were the
main stages, which, from left to right, would be showcasing League of
Legends, Call of Duty, and Starcraft 2. All of it was great, but you all
know where I belong.

The Starcraft 2 Main Stage

Before everything started off, I ran into a few people, including DJ Wheat, JP McDaniel, Incontrol, Marine King, Innovation, and even the god of Broodwar himself: Flash!

Getting
pictures and autographs from these guys was beyond surreal. All my
life, I had looked up to these figures as gods, and here they were: at
eye level and most definitely human. After all of that, it was finally
time for the games to start. I was ready.

You don't even want to know how many times we had to retake that

To
be honest, I didn't pay so much attention to the games. I was there for
the games, sure, but the community and the connectedness of it all
really is what set it all apart from me watching the stream at home
alone. I'm therefore not going to do any analysis of the games here,
Day9 and all of the rest of the casters already took care of that. The
only will note that the Flash vs Bly game was truly incredible and you
should all check it out! Also, check out the cool cheerful that I
brought!

We thought it was funny, but there's only so much you can get out of an 11"x17"

After a long
first day of meeting several new people, one of which came back
with us to our hotel because he would've otherwise just slept in his
car, we fell into bed exhausted. We had no idea that the best was yet to
come!

Day 2: the first order of the day was cheerfuls. The
iBuyPower station had a bunch of free posters set out along with some
markers to use, and boy did we use them!! I ended up making two posters
that I really stuck with:

Armed
with our cheerfuls, we made our way out into the crowd and set up for
the long haul, because this day would prove to be the longest.
Everything passed by pretty much like normal even with this incredibly
awesome cheerful

And getting to see a few more players plus an absolutely awesome Day9 meet and greet where I got 2 signatures.

But
everything only turned truly amazing during the Ret vs Flash game.
Since Ret was pretty much the last foreign hope, the crowd went
absolutely nuts for this game! People were cheering for absolutely
everything and sometimes for no reason at all. Something to note though
was all of the booing of Flash that took place. I understand why that
happened, and that a small subset of people were very upset to see the
foreign hope losing. However, since eSports is such a small community, I
could never condone it since we need to stick out for each other, and
I'm proud to say that I yelled at the guys who were doing it to stop
booing and start cheering. In fact, I yelled and screamed so much that I
lost my voice! Oh the sacrifices we make for eSports!

The best
part, of course, came right at the very end of the day with the Polt vs
Life match. We were only left with the truly dedicated individuals in
the crowd, and with Day9 and Husky casting. Fun fact: during these
tournaments, Day9 stands up when he casts. Because of the awesome
combination of casters and crowd, we just went absolutely apeshit with
our cheering. If a drone died, we would stand up and scream. And when
the fusion core came along, almost all the crowd started doing the
fusion core dance. People were chanting offense and defense like crazy.
There were screams, and there were tears. I can't tell you how many
times I nearly passed out from lack of oxygen after screaming so loud.
It was a moment that I was extremely proud to be a part of. And to top
it off, we ended the night by chanting "Thank you casters!!" All I can
really say about that is

Note the new Korean signature - that's from Life

Finally,
day 3 arrives, and with it the knowledge that there would be no next
day. That means that anything that I hadn't done before, I had to do
now. So, of course, I go straight to the MLG store and buy 4 different
tshirts. Then I make one last cheerful for the day.

The letters were eventually shaded in blue

Planetside
2 was a total blast, and some of the stuff at Full Sail University was
pretty sweet too. After visiting every booth, it was finally time to get
back to watching. After several amazing games, suddenly, I was
approached by Anna Prosser-Robinson to get interviewed. I was, of
course, nervous as all hell, but I was pumped and ready to go. Then we
started, and I hit a brick wall. Whenever I spoke, my voice would come
through the sound system a little later, giving me some mind bending
auditory feedback. Now I know how medivacs feel like as this feedback
subsequently caused me to drop 90 IQ points and make me appear drunk.

Note the bling

However,
as I got more and more used to things, I really started to make things
work, getting the crowd to roar, and making some semi-decent analysis.
It was at least decent enough that I didn't get crucified on reddit!
Speaking of which, here's a link to the reddit article which also has a
link to the interview if you really want to see how it really went down:

Even
though it seemed good, I ended up feeling like crap after the
interview. But after aimlessly walking around the venue for a bit and
three Dr Peppers, I felt much better. At last, we came to those final
moments in the tournament, and the final match. Words can't describe how
electric that crowd was. Every single person was screaming and cheering
the entire night, and we proved as a community that Starcraft is not
dead.

Finally, after that last
match, a huge group of people stayed behind to say hi to Day9. This is
where I got to really see the part of him that everyone loves. He was
extremely kind to every single person, and stayed to talk with each
person individually (albeit speed-run style), despite the fact that he
had a taxi full of people waiting for him so he could go to the after
party. That's why we love this guy so much. And when it was my turn and I
got to tell him that I was littlebig11, a subscriber to his channel,
the look of recognition and happiness on his face was absolutely
marvelous. I unfortunately hugged him a bit too hard as a result of
this, but overall, getting to see him and meet him was definitely the
best part of the weekend. Period. I will never forget it.

Fun fact, we're about the same height

After
that we were starved, so after a weekend that we survived by eating Dr
Pepper and Chocolate covered pretzels, we went to McDonalds where my
drink for the meal was, you guessed it, Dr Pepper. As soon as we got
back to the hotel, there was really only one thing left to do: sleep.

Dat ass

And so now here I am the next day, sitting in a train car heading back home, writing this whole thing out to share with you all.

I
could try to say so many things to try and describe what this whole
trip meant to me. I could talk about the people I met, the memories I
made, and the things that I did. But that wouldn't cover even half of
how I feel. I could talk about what it feels like to be truly a part of
the community, and how this experience wants to make me do more for it,
but even that couldn't describe what I'm thinking right now. I guess
there's only one thing that I really can say: I will never forget MLG
Dallas 2013.